A North Africa and Middle East ramble

[JohnM]

One of the things that struck me about Ethiopia was the very large number of (often very large) unfinished buildings. Many had reached an advanced stage of construction and were essentially complete shells that had never been fitted out, like this massive hotel on Lake Tana at Bahar Dar. Quite why there were so many, I could not get a clear explanation, but it seemed very wasteful.

One of the many uses of eucalypt poles is scaffolding. Typical of where E. globulus occurs in dense plantings in wet environments on deep soils overseas, it grows very tall while still remaining slender. Harvesting clearly graded the timber into various pole thicknesses according to requirements of the (unmilled) product.



Heading north to Gondar from Bahar Dar.

The poles are used to make corrals for stock or covered semi-open storage and some of the buildings of identical construction are plastered with mud/straw adobe to enclose them.



General road views and crowned crane.



Mid-morning stop at Wereta. Some cobblestone streets may be a hangover from the Italian occupation in the late 19th century and again in the 1930s. It was a buzzing market day.





It was both harvest and next crop preparation time immediately following.



Climbing into the mountains and a spectacular and somewhat phallic residual element to impress RooFlyer.



Spectacular scenery generally and a gorgeous time of year to be in the region with the spring-like vegetation.



Typical village on the main road, people who had been at a funeral and some traditional (I’d say meaning pre-eucalypt-style) huts. Beautiful countryside.



Laundry day. Note the density of planting the Eucalypts in this small plantation – hence the tall, slender stems. Adobe-plastered eucalypt-framed housing.

 

[JohnM]

The legendary historical town of Gondar (aka Gonder) from our hotel on the hill and the castles built in the 17th and 18th centuries by Ethiopian kings. It’s a World Heritage site with several castles in the Royal Enclosure.



The main, and oldest, castle is Fasiladas’ Palace.



Nearby is Debre Berhan Selassie Church. The roof decoration is made with ostrich eggs.



The roof with its rows of cherubs eyeballing everyone is a highlight.



Further away is the bathhouse of Fasilidas where thousands of Ethiopians celebrate the festival of Timkat every January. Timkat celebrates Christ’s baptism and rivals Meskel as the biggest Christian festival in Ethiopia. The pond surrounding the bathhouse is filled with water for Timkat and the pilgrims take the plunge to emulate Christ’s baptism and to signify renewal of faith.

 

[JohnM]

I’ve been struggling to find time to move on with this, but next year’s DONE4 plus some complex additions is now locked away and a few other things are out of the way, so back to it.

Moving on northwards from Gondar to Debark in a leisurely morning drive.



E. globulus everywhere in the highlands. Note the dense single-stem stands and the coppiced multi-stemmed regrowth from trees cut off at the base. Eucalypts are a mainstay of the economy in this region.







Spectacular wildflowers – dominated by Meskel daisies and a rose-type clover. Couldn’t have picked a better time to visit this region.



Some of the eucalypt stems about 2-4 m long were split lengthways. I think this was to facilitate bonding of adobe when they were used as wall structures.



Harvest-time in an agriculturally-rich region. A very pleasant drive.

 

[JohnM]

The afternoon’s excursion was into the Simien Mountains National Park – and with that the story of the AK-47 unfolds. It was mandatory to hire a park guide plus two ‘guards’ when going into the park. I’ve seen this sort of thing before (eg. gorilla trek in Rwanda). While in the past it may have been necessary to have armed guards to deter bandits, it’s obvious that the only purpose now is to continue work for people who have had that role for years, and to continue to make that work into the future of the back of the tourists. So we had a park guide and the two ‘guards’.

I started quizzing the park guide on why we had the two AK-47-armed guards (neither of whom could speak English) and on the characteristics of the weapons. There was some mumbling about protection from hyenas and leopards (which do occur in the park – but deep where we weren’t going). Clearly everybody knows that the armed guards are not really necessary...

After finding out that each magazine held 30 rounds, I asked the guide: “Ok – so what happens if we get attacked by 61 bandits?” He translated for the ‘guards’ – who promptly p*ssed themselves laughing. Good icebreaker presented my opportunity to ask to hold an AK-47 for the first time .



It was a Saturday and a buzzing market day as we headed out of Debark to the park.



It was cool and damp in the park. We were at about 3300 m IIRC. The moist air sweeping up the deep valleys causing rapid changes from sunny and dry to cloudy and drizzly reminded me of the Drakensburg Mountains in South Africa. There was quite a lot of Spanish moss on the trees.



Time for a hike – steep and slippery in parts - to the viewpoints over the valley.





‘Guard’ cleaning and aiming at non-existent threats with ‘my’ AK-47 in our lunch break and a closer shot of the other guard in non-camo on the ledge. A pretty chilled day out with an admiring group for the boys…



The park is famous for its large troops of gelada monkeys. They are usually called gelada baboons but they are not a baboon, although they are closely related. They are mostly terrestrial, foraging in the grassland. They are also remarkably habituated to humans, so it is easy to walk closely amongst them.



And, I can’t resist it - three species of dung beetle in gelada dung .

 

[JohnM]

The next day was a drive through the mountains from Debark to Aksum (aka Axum). The distance doesn’t look great but it was a slow, yet spectacular, journey through the mountains.



A closer view of the early section of the road, with plenty of switchbacks and hairpin bends. It was built by the Italians during their occupation. The road was narrow and a bit rough and sloppy in places, so it was particularly slow going for the first part of the day – but that was good as the scenery was amazing.



Beautiful misty morning leaving Debark, with some very old eucalypts that had been coppiced over many years. Perfect growing conditions for E. globulus: deep, loamy soils, year-round moisture (E. globulus is an unusual eucalypt in that it cannot close its stomata under water stress, so it will just die under severe moisture deficit – witness some patches in marginal plantations on sandy soils in WA as average rainfall has declined since the MIS woodchip plantation boom of the 1990s. But it grows like a weed otherwise.)

 

[JohnM]

Coming down into a river valley and villages and agriculture began to appear. But there was still plenty of mountain driving even after getting back to sealed road.







And a funeral procession in the distance while looking at these hills.







Then a pleasant stop for coffee.

 

[JohnM]

As we moved northwards and entered Tigray province, conditions became less favourable for eucalypt growth (drier, stony soil) and the flatter land was used more for agriculture. The houses are constructed of stones or concrete blocks rather than timber (well, sticks).

 

[JohnM]

Next stop – Aksum (aka Axum), close to the Eritrean border. Eritrea was once a part of Ethiopia and there was conflict in the region in the 1990s.

Aksum has a very deep history and was a central city on ancient trading routes between the Mediterranean and India. Ethiopian Christianity arose in Aksum and the Ark of the Covenant (the container that holds Moses’ 10 Commandments) is believed by adherents to reside in a small chapel there and the Queen of Sheba is reputed to have had it as her capital in the 10th century BC.

The most prominent and awe-inspiring objects in this World Heritage site are the Aksumite Stelae, or ancient stone obelisks that are massive monolithic tombstones or monuments to local rulers in pre-Christian times. The Northern Stelae Field is the most prominent, containing 66 stelae from the 3rd and 4th centuries AD.

The 33m Great Stele has collapsed. It’s believed to be the largest single block of stone that humans have ever attempted to erect and is thought to have collapsed during erection in the 4th century AD.









There are many tombs at the site, with many not yet excavated.



Opposite the Northern Stelae Field are the St Mary of Zion churches, essentially the centre of Ethiopian Christianity. The new church was built in the 1960s (it shows…) by Haile Selassie so women could have a place to worship as the old church is men-only. Old bible or scripture book with characteristic bright allegorical art.



The old church was built by Emperor Fasiladis, the founder of Gondar, in 1665. In the background, the chapel where the Ark of the Covenant is kept.



Inside the old church.



The throne stone where kings were crowned.

 

[JohnM]

This seemingly unimposing stone a little way out of town, and known as King Ezana’s Inscription, is the Ethiopian equivalent of the Rosetta Stone. It was accidentally discovered by three farmers in 1988. It’s inscribed in three languages (Sabaean, Ge’ez and Greek) and dates from about 340 AD. Nearby is Queen of Sheba’s Bath (in name only). It has been a water reservoir for millennia.



Dungar (aka Queen of Sheba’s) Palace. Really likely to have been a nobleman’s mansion dating from about the 6th century AD. A pleasant walk away through fields of ripening teff is Gobodura Hill, the site of the granite quarry for the stelae. Teff is an annual bunch grass with very small seeds used as a grain to make flour for injera, the sourdough traditional Ethiopian flatbread. Nowadays, it’s also touted by western trendoids as a ‘superfood’ like chia and quinoa. Sure enough, someone in the Riverina has recently started growing it.



Looking back towards Aksum, the rugged hill and the Lioness of Gobodura relief of unknown origin and probably dating from about the third century AD.



Walking back on a loop past some farm houses as the sun was setting and chatting to the local kids. Dried branches with many stems and pieces of thorny acacia are used to top the stone fences to keep the goats out of the crops.



A particularly nice candelabra tree in flower and attracting a lot of blowflies (but it didn’t smell).

 

[RooFlyer]

The 33m Great Stele has collapsed. It’s believed to be the largest single block of stone that humans have ever attempted to erect and is thought to have collapsed during erection in the 4th century AD.

I believe this was the founding of the Ethiopian phrase "Bugger !" which has been adopted around the world as the incantation to invoke when something goes badly wrong.

 

[JohnM]

Moving on eastwards from Aksum through the battlefield of Adwa where the Ethiopians under Emperor Menelik II defeated the Italian colonial army in 1896. 1 March is a nationally celebrated day of great significance (think Anzac Day) commemorating the victory.

Then a stop at Yeha, to visit the remains of the 500 BC temple, and considered the birthplace of Ethiopia’s earliest known civilisation, before turning southwards to visit the rock-hewn church of Medhane-Alem Adi Kesho at Tsaeda Imba before an overnight stop at Wikro. All the while driving through some spectacular highland country.

Northern Tigray is famous for its rock-hewn churches. Unlike the more famous monolithic (carved out of the rock and only left attached at the base) of Lalibela - the final destination a couple of days away yet – the Tigrayan churches are semi-monolithic (only partially separated from the host rock) or are built into pre-existing caves. Many are atop cliffs and are quite a slog to reach. (At least one needs climbing a rope – we didn’t do that one.)





And the numerous partial, yet at an advanced stage, constructions still puzzling me (even if used to mount mobile phone antennas). Most look quite old. They are either abandoned or under very slow incremental construction.



Beautiful birds, the names of which I cannot recall, spotted at a roadside stop.



On the dirt road into Yeha and a couple of Ethiopian tip-trucks in the village.



The ruins of the Great Temple at Yeha dates from the 7th century BC. The sun was not at a good angle for photos and the supporting framework takes away from it. The construction is impressive for its use of perfectly fitted together mortarless large limestone blocks.





The adjacent small museum had some very old parchment religious books and the usual colourful paintings.



Time for coffee at the typical coffee-station and with the typical ceremony. The lady roasted some beans. The coffee pot had a fibre filter plugged into the spout.

 

[JohnM]

Moving on through beautiful countryside at a perfect time of year.

 

[JohnM]

Heading into the location of the first rock-hewn church.



It was a fairly serious climb to the church. All the local kids come out to try to give help – for money, of course. Ahem – I needed no help and although one of the oldest members of the group, to get some good pics, I waited behind and then I was first to the top… Goes to show - all that clean living really helps… That, or the Fountain of Youth truly arises out of a bottle of Dom in 1A .





The tricky ‘key’ that this church is famous for.





From the inside.



The church, while interesting, lacked the colourful paintings of the monasteries on Lake Tana.



Driving out of the valley at the end of another very full day. Interesting fences. Fencing contractor at work. Harvest time.

 

[craven morehead]

That Dom in 1A fitness program not working quite as well for me JohnM As usual enjoying another of your TR's.

 

[JohnM]

We visited two of the 100 or so rock-hewn churches near Wukro before moving on to Mekele for the night, with the following day being a very long, but again spectacular drive to Lalibela for three nights before flying back to Addis Ababa.



Entry to the compound of Abraha We Atsbeha church. This church is unusual for having a portico that was added by the Italians – apparently as an attempt to gain favour with the locals by proving they weren’t Muslims.









Next was Wukro Cherkos church, carved from the rock in a crooked cruciform shape. Water damage has diminished the interior.

 

[JohnM]

The long drive to Lalibela saw many changes of beautiful scenery through valleys and highlands.





The guys sitting on the elevated platform in the ripening sorghum crop had slingshots for scaring away birds. It was a common sight in this area.



Stop at Hiwane for coffee and a walk past the timber yard to the buzzing market. Markets tended to be set out as specialist areas, like the metal work of pans and donkey panniers.



It was characteristic in this region for the women to wear their hair pulled back into a braided frizz.

 

[JohnM]

As we headed south and again into the moist highlands, the eucalypts once more dominated.



Kids heading home from school. Massively-horned zebus.







Getting higher until reaching an extensively-farmed plateau at just over 3500 m. It gets cold here in the winter, so much of the harvesting that was under way was of oats crops to store as hay for stockfeed, and quickly followed by tillage for new sowing.





Mix of traditional and more modern construction. Project homes Ethiopian-style. Schools quite obvious because they were painted.

 

[JohnM]

Lalibela! As the Lonely Planet says: “If you’re only going to see one thing in Ethiopia, this should be it.” I cannot disagree.

The rock-hewn churches are all built below ground level to create the building itself, then hollowed out to create the interior. Quite amazing. They broadly date from about the 12-13 centuries AD.

OK, let’s take a look.

Bet Medhane Alem resembles a massive Greek temple and is reputedly the largest rock-hewn church in the world, measuring 33.5 m x 23.5 m and over 11.5 m high. Like much of the site, it’s now under a massive protective cover that can detract from the originality feeling, but of course it is necessary for preservation. It’s hard to avoid in pics.













The churches are mostly clustered in two main groups with tunnels leading between them within each group.

 

[JohnM]

Some views from above.







Yet more in the same group.

 

[JohnM]

Moving on to the south-eastern group. It had a quite complex array of connecting tunnels and cuttings.

















But wait, there’s more…